Molecular characterization of a novel narnavirus from the phytopathogenic fungus Botryosphaeria dothidea

Abstract Here, a novel mycovirus, Botryosphaeria dothidea narnavirus 5 (BdNV5), was discovered in the plant-pathogenic fungus Botryosphaeria dothidea strain ZM210167-1. The BdNV5 genome sequence is 2,397 nucleotides (nt) in length and contains a putative open reading frame (ORF) encoding the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) with a molecular mass of 72.77 kDa. A BLASTp comparison of the RdRp sequence showed that it was most similar to the RdRp Botryosphaeria dothidea narnavirus 4 (42.35%). The phylogenetic tree based on RdRp sequence showed that BdNV5 clusters together with the members of the family Narnaviridae. BdNV5 is thus a novel member of the family Narnaviridae from the phytopathogenic fungus B. dothidea.